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Guided Meditation: Inspiration, Not Expectation

Introduction

Greetings, friends. Greetings from Northern California, where I am on unceded Ohlone land, where it's rainy and about to get light through the clouds. Greetings to you wherever in the world you are, dear sangha^[1]. It's lovely to be with you in this moment in time. Lots of happiness of heart to see you on the chat joining, happy-making.

We're going to continue our exploration today. We've been exploring the theme of life as improv, and today the theme we're going to explore is non-attachment to outcome. Non-attachment to outcome is a very Buddhist frame which also shows up in improv too.

As we explore it in our meditation, here is the invitation to consider. Often we think of non-attachment to outcome in our life as a teaching, but what if we actually bring it into the frame of our moment-to-moment experience, moment-to-moment training, as we train ourselves in meditation? Sometimes it can be confusing for people when we talk about non-attachment to outcome when we're meditating. The question comes up: "Well, do I just sit willy-nilly and let anything come up?" No, not exactly. We have a particular perspective, a particular attitude, a bigger container, but in the small ways, whatever arises, we have flexibility. We are not attached to, "Okay, I want a deep state of concentration now and it needs to happen, and if it doesn't happen, if thoughts arise, then we're destroyed and angry at ourselves and at circumstances." There is flexibility of, "Oh, okay, this is what's arising right now. How can I skillfully work with this? What kind of gift does this quote-unquote distracting thought have in this moment to teach me something, to train me how to work with it?"

So, non-attachment to outcome within a larger framework of our heart having an aspiration, having an intention, but not attachment to moment-to-moment outcome. Having flexibility within that. So the bigger container and the moment-to-moment. With that, let's practice together. Let's meditate together, and then I'll look at this through the frame of improvising our life, and connect the two together. May it be of service.

Guided Meditation

Let us arrive. Let us arrive with the aspiration, with the intention of connecting. Connecting to ourselves. Connecting to goodness, cultivating goodness. Cultivating wise choices, wisdom, kindness in this moment.

With the aspiration for service, for peace, for freedom. Aspirations for not suffering and not causing others suffering as much as possible. Aspiration for flexibility, for ease, for gentleness. And any personal aspirations you have in this moment in time for your life, please add them, bring them in.

And let these intentions, aspirations, imbue your heart space, your mind, in this practice. Aspirations, not expectations. Expectations can be tight. With aspirations, there's a lot of room for gentleness and wisdom. Expectations are demanding and give rise to self-judgment. So let there be aspiration in every moment.

Connecting with the breath, with the body. Receiving whatever arises in this moment.

Reconnecting with aspiration. Letting aspiration be nourishing, calming, enlivening.

Let there be aspiration without a fixed attachment in your heart, your mind. Be like water. Flexible.

Finding other ways to be wise instead of butting heads with challenges. Finding ways to be wise, kind to yourself.

What if we dropped in the aspiration for not suffering, but be more daring: aspiration for happiness. The Buddha^[2] was known as the happy one. Aspirations for happiness, for joy, without attachment to outcome. We don't need to have joy by just dropping it in; it's an aspiration, without attachment to outcome.

Let there be a lightness. The aspiration for joy, happiness, lightness. The body not having the heaviness of attachment. See what it feels like in the body. This lightness with your aspirations. Uplifting, light.

If thoughts about the future or past arise, we meet them with the lightness of our heart, of our aspiration for happiness, joy, non-suffering, freedom. In this moment. A sense of uplift in the heart and the mind.

Allow your whole body to feel your aspiration. Be infused to every cell. Aspiration, not expectation.

And as we turn to bring this sitting to a close, reconnecting with the aspiration in our heart. Aspiration for waking up. Freedom from suffering, from causing suffering, through wisdom, kindness. For joy and happiness, like the Buddha, the happy one.

Wishing happiness, goodness, for ourselves, our hearts, our minds, every cell of this body. A wish, an aspiration, not an attachment. Lightly, an uplift in the heart, wishing well for ourselves. For all beings whose lives ours touches. Bringing them to heart, and all beings everywhere.

May all beings everywhere be happy, have well-being, be free. May my practice, the goodness of the seeds I plant, may my practice, my aspirations without attachment, be of service to all beings everywhere, including myself.

Thank you for your practice, friends.

We have a minute of transition, and if you are inspired to share with one word what's arising for you in this moment—we've been doing that the past couple days—bring it into chat. That would be lovely, as I transition the recordings here.

Dharmette: Life as Improv (3/5) "Chivalry" as Non-Attachment to Ideas

Reflections

Hello friends! Greetings, greetings. It's lovely to be with you in this moment in time, having just practiced together. I invited you, if you wanted to, to put a word of what is arising for you and bring it into the space.

I'll read a few of them. Yes: warm, relaxed, awareness, love, genuine presence, ease, calm abiding, waking up. Thank you. Gratitude, relief, release, appreciation, openness, smile-hearted, a bit more calm. Beautiful. So many beautiful intentions again, and aspirations, and what's arising: joyous anticipation, life is amazing, aspiration. Beautiful.

Thank you so much for your engagement. Your engagement with this practice and engaging with each other in this really inspiring way to support each other: caring, not clinging, aspired to be wise. Thank you for all the reflections. And "letting go a hair," I love that. Letting go a hair. Beautiful.

Life as Improv

So the theme for this week is life as improv. Buddhist teachings are actually infused in the practice of improv comedy. Not just as an explosion of hilarity and fun—which it can be, and is—but yet it's an internal practice to really make that happen to the eye of the observer.

The first day we talked about the attitude: this sense of lightness, the bringing of emptiness with fullness. This sense of life as an infinite game, as an infinite play. The lightness of co-creating. Yesterday we talked about "yes, and." Meeting the moment with "yes, and" and adding to it, instead of "no," blocking life, blocking energy, and being in conflict with what is, which never helps.

And today, as introduced in our practice, the idea of having an aspiration. Having a frame and a non-attachment to outcome in the moment. Because attachment to outcome, of wanting things to be a particular way in a particular moment, this tightness can make our hearts really tight, our bodies heavy. There's a sense of heaviness instead of finding possibility, being like water. Our hearts and minds being like water, finding possibilities. My aspiration is this, and yet in this moment, this is what's arising. Instead of being in conflict with it, can I accept what is, still keeping with the aspiration, but not attaching to a particular outcome in the way I imagined it to be?

So that is the Buddhist frame. And now let me switch for a moment to the improv frame so that we look at it from a slightly different perspective for a moment. Especially because improv is really relational mindfulness. That's how I see it: it's relational mindfulness. It's how we really interact with others with a sense of lightness and all these other aspirations.

The word that Keith Johnstone^[3]—who is a seminal teacher in improv and the author of the book Impro—uses is "chivalry." Chivalry is really non-attachment to ideas in relational improv, or relational mindfulness. This is how he defines it: Chivalry means not clinging to your own ideas, your own status. (In different games, people assume a status—maybe they're higher status or lower status. That's another concept from improv.) Or even your own life as a character. Basically, chivalry means not clinging to your own ideas. Chivalry is daring to give up control. Players should allow themselves to be changed by other players, be happy to be forced to change.

And change is such an interesting concept, right? In this relational way of being, in this relational mindfulness. So the way this shows up is, say if you are an improviser (and again, we're all improvisers in our lives, we improvise everything). But say in an improv scene, two improvisers show up, and one improviser has this idea of, "Okay, this scene is going to go in this direction." So they say something like, "Oh, I'm tired today," expecting something else from the other person, like, "Oh yeah, this is what this scene is going to be about." Person A has that idea.

But Person B has maybe a different idea. So if Person B says, "Oh, I'm sorry you're tired, let's go and rest." Person A had a different idea, thought maybe Person B would say, "Oh, let's go and play anyway." The point being, if we stick to our idea, if we are not chivalrous, if we cling to the way a scene needs to be, then there is a block. This person is pulling this way, that person is pulling that way. It's like, "Ah, life is pulling that way, this person is pulling this way." There's a lot of conflict.

What if the invitation is to say, "Okay, well, that's the idea I had, but... non-attachment to outcome." Chivalry. The big frame, the aspiration here is lightness, a co-creation. It's a co-creation with kindness. With chivalry as the bigger frame, without attaching to my idea that "yes, we're definitely going to go and play," I can open up. "Oh no, the scene is going to be about something else. Okay, let me be changed. Let me open up to what this invitation is and see how, within the frame of my aspiration and the scene, I can be changed and shifted." And then the other person with the same idea will be shifted and changed.

If both people are willing to be shifted and changed and play and co-create together, it becomes beautiful. In improv, the scene becomes fun, watchable, it becomes joyous. Whereas if the two people are stuck, like they're pulling it to go this way and this other person is pulling it to go that way and butting heads, it's torture to witness. It's really torture to witness, and also feels torturous internally. It's like you just keep hitting this attachment: "This is the way, this is the idea I had." Just... chivalry.

So again, now back to the end, of course, this is all still within the Buddhist teachings of non-attachment. And within our practice, especially relationally, as we relate to a moment. So we have this aspiration for waking up, for causing as little harm as possible, causing no harm, letting go a hair. Freedom. And we have these ideas, especially relationally, as to how something's going to go. And then, oh, it's not going to go that way. Okay. So instead of digging our heels in—like, "This is the idea I had. This is what I thought we were going to do today"—can we be flexible?

Okay, alright. Within the frame, it doesn't mean that we're going to compromise our integrity. It's not compromising our integrity in any way at all, but within that frame, can we be flexible? Can there be flexibility both relationally and in our minds? And actually finding ways to work with challenges, with the hindrances^[4], with our suffering, instead of digging our heels in. "It's not going the way I wanted it to go, I want it to be a different way." We get stuck. We get more and more stuck in our suffering.

Can we say, "Yes, and... okay, yes, this is what's being offered in this moment." It's not exactly what I had in mind. I wasn't planning on getting sick, or having body aches, or the storm happening. Like, this is not exactly it, but "yes, and." Okay, this is what's happening. And what is the wise way to open to it wholeheartedly? Wholeheartedly with wisdom, kindness, with integrity, and without attachment to outcome. Keeping the aspiration, but without this fixed view that things have to be in a particular way.

So I'll give one quick final example. Not just relationally, but say in your practice. Say a hindrance arises: the hindrance of sleepiness arises. If you have a stance of, "No... sleepiness! I hate it, I'm a bad meditator, this is terrible, this is awful, I'm awful." Versus another way to work with sleepiness is, "Yes, and... okay, yes, this is a different state of mind. Okay, sleepiness is here." It doesn't mean succumbing to it, but it means, "Okay, how can I wisely work with this?"

One can actually study sleepiness. It can still be here, but one can say, "Yes, and... let me study what is happening in my body. What's happening in my mind? What is this like?" Can I be aware and have kind awareness in every moment? And actually, you might fall asleep for a millisecond, if you're aware, and it will be a very deep, restful sleep in the middle of your meditation. Then you wake up completely refreshed, and you would have cultivated this ability to be with the hypnagogic state with mindfulness, instead of resisting it, resisting it, resisting it, and finishing your meditation feeling terrible, exhausted, and angry. So there is this "yes, and" that can be such a helpful stance internally with whatever is arising, as well as relationally in improvising our lives.

So thank you all for your practice, for your attention, for showing up, supporting yourself, and being open to exploring these slightly different concepts, to bring in some freshness. Some different perspective as to how to improvise our lives internally and externally, with the perspective, with the aspiration for cultivating kindness, joy, lightness, freedom, and wisdom.

May you be well. May you be happy. May you have lightness. And yes, the invitation today—I always like to give invitations. Relationally, whenever you have a relational moment, internally, can you have chivalry? Can you have non-attachment to ideas? Aspiration, integrity, but not attachment. Can you find ways to be flexible and see how that feels internally, versus digging your heels in: "It's got to be this way, I don't like the way it is."

Thank you all. Take good care, be well, and see you tomorrow.